India and Malaysia have decided to upgrade their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim talked about expanding cooperation in areas such as digitalisation, defense manufacturing, semiconductors, and AI.

The two parties agreed to sign eight deals, which included a vital memorandum of understanding (MoU) regarding the recruitment and employment terms for Indian workers, and also pledged to collaborate on linking India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with Malaysia's Payments Network (PayNet) for digital transactions.

“Today, we have decided that our partnership will be elevated to a comprehensive strategic partnership. We believe that there is still a lot of potential in economic cooperation. Bilateral trade and investment should be expanded,” Modi said at a media interaction after his talks with Ibrahim.

Pointing to the steady progress in bilateral trade, Modi said investments from Malaysia to India were worth $5 billion last year and the two sides had commenced trade in national currencies. “We should increase mutual cooperation in new technological areas such as semiconductors, fintech, defence industry, AI and quantum,” he said, speaking in Hindi.

“Malaysia and India, from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru and Tunku Abdul Rahman, have established good relations but we realised...that this must be further strengthened in a multitude of areas which covers...digital, investments, trade, construction, modern agriculture, education, research, and all fields, including military collaboration in terms of joint operations to safeguard our borders,” Ibrahim said.